That's largely down to Russia's chaotic 1990s. Enterprising and ruthless men (and they are practically all men) took hold of huge chunks of the former Soviet Union's rapidly privatised industries, or made millions bringing in highly sought-after exports from the west.

More recently, they haven't limited their interests to Russia. In the past 15 years, a handful of oligarchs have been snapping up companies in the West, too.

Some of the oligarchs no longer call Russia home: They have moved to the UK and US, or other post-Soviet countries. But they've all gained major interests in Europe and North America, controlling flashy organisations like football clubs, and huge, under-the-public-radar industrial groups.

Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev - Evening Standard/Independent

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images

34-year old Evgeny Lebedev and his father, Alexander Lebedev, are joint owners of British newspapers with a combined circulation of more than one million copies per day: The Independent, i, and the free Evening Standard make up an impressive UK media empire.

Russian oligarchs have made a big deal of expanding their influence in their home country (Alexander Lebedev is part owner of Russia’s liberal Novaya Gazeta), but foreign media empires are rarer. Lebedev built his fortune in banking, navigating Russia’s turbulent 1990s.

Oleg Deripaska - Strabag SE

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

Oleg Deripaska is chairman of RUSAL, the world’s largest aluminium company, and is closely connected with Russian politics. He made major investments in the construction of the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.

Deripaska now has a blocking minority of shares in Strabag: It’s not one of the most glamourous companies on the list, but it’s massive. It’s one of Europe’s biggest construction companies, with revenues of over €10 billion, and more than 70,000 employees.

Yuri Milner - Facebook, Twitter

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Milner’s wealth soared in the mid-1990s as CEO of an investment brokerage owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who famously fell out of favour with Vladimir Putin and spent eight years in prison.

He’s made some extremely astute bets on US social media companies. Milner bought shares in Facebook back in 2009, and held 5.5% of the company as it went to IPO, turning a $200 million investment into well over $1 billion in a few years.

Similarly, on the day of Twitter’s IPO, Milner’s investment in Twitter, (about $400 million in 2011, when it was valued at $8 billion) surged when it floated. The company is currently worth about $26 billion.

Dmitry Rybolovlev - AS Monaco, Bank of Cyprus

One year later, he picked up a two-thirds stake in AS Monaco, a major European football club. He’s made Monaco a huge spender, buying players like Radamel Falcao (who later moved to Manchester United) and James Rodriguez, winner of the 2014 World Cup Golden Boot.

At the time of Cyprus’ crisis in 2013, Rybovlev owned just less than 10% of Bank of Cyprus, making him the largest single shareholder.

Roman Abramovich - Chelsea

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville

Unlike Arsenal stakeholder Alisher Usmanov, Abromovich owns a majority stake in Chelsea, which he picked up in 2003.

He’s an oligarch in the truest way, enjoying the political-business revolving door that’s open to a certain class of Russian multi-billionaires (he was governor of Chukotka, a region in the very north east of Russia, for eight years).

Football clubs are a labour of love as much as a cash cow for global billionaires, and Chelsea makes up only a small portion of Abramovich’s empire. But it did post a record profit of £18 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Alexei Mordashov - Lucchini

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: REUTERS/Therry Roge

Mordashov snapped up shares offered to workers in state industries as they were privatised in the 1990s, and quickly became wealthy. Like many of the other oligarchs on the list, he’s made his money in metals.

In 2010, Mordashov bought Lucchini, one of Italy’s largest steel producers, but the company went into receivership in 2012, and he’s still looking for a buyer. It’s not his only European interest: He owns a quarter of German travel group TUI.

Mikhail Prokhorov - Brooklyn Nets

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

Prokhorov is one of the most famous names on the list. He’s another oligarch who made a fortune in the metals industry, and ran as a candidate in the 2012 Russian presidential election.

In 2010, Prokhorov bough the then New Jersey Nets, and moved them to Brooklyn in 2012. As of January 2015, it looks like he wants to sell.

Alexander Abramov - Oregon Steel Mills

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Abramov is one of Roman Abramovich’s business partners, and controls a huge amount of Russia’s steel through industrial giant Evraz.

Len Blavatnik - Warner Music Group

He began his career in business in the US, before the collapse of the USSR. But he’s also undoubtedly raked in a lot of money in the immediate aftermath of the collapse, snapping up newly-privatised assets with another Russiam, Viktor Vekselberg.

Access Industries, the company he set up in New York in the 1980s and still owns today, bought Warner Music for $3.3 billion in 2011. It may be the largest oligarch-owned company in North America.

Mikhail Fridman - RWE Dea

Graphic: Stefano Pozzebon/BI, Photo: Sofvoto/UIG via Getty Images

Mikhail Fridman founded Alfa-Eco in 1989, which eventually became Alfa Group, an investment firm that holds a hodgepodge of different interests in Russia.

Fridman’s purchase of RWE Dea last year cost him $7.1 billion according to Bloomberg, perhaps the largest purchase of a European company by a Russian. It’s the oil and gas subsidiary of Germany’s RWE, the country’s second-largest energy firm. Russia has its own oil and gas industries, but the purchase gives Fridman a huge presence in the sector in the rest of Europe.